oh yes their dynamic is so absolutely fucked and weird and sad. i think if victor hadnt died when he did, they would have just ended up making eachother worse and miserable
if victor ever requited walton’s love for him (be it platonic or romantic) i think walton would fall LESS in love. i think walton just loves romanticizing the unobtainable, he chases the unknown, and that’s why he hangs all his hopes on things he feasibly cannot reach - first becoming a famous poet, then sailing to the arctic to find the northern passage, and then victor, who is dying and too hung up on his past to love again
also, if victor HAD lived long enough to recover and be well again, i think walton would have lost interest in victor. victor and walton’s relationship was built and founded primarily on their dynamic as sick and caretaker, and without it i’m not sure walton would know what to do with himself, or he would become overbearing to compensate
at this point, victor would have already exhausted his whole story as well, so there’s no air of mystery around him anymore - nothing for walton to glorify or romanticize
Also it's very uncomfortable to see how much Walton romanticizes Victor's depression. "Noble and godlike in ruin" dude he's just educated in the same way as you and hyperfixating on revenge, please stop
What do you think of Robert Walton? I love that silly sailor very dearly and in one of your post you said that he was a little like Percy Shelley and I'm really curious to know why that is :]
i can't believe i've never shared my waltonthoughts before!!! in short
to be honest for a pretty large majority of my frankenstein fandom time i've been fairly apathetic about walton? (sorry robin 😞) i felt really really bad because i couldn't quite pinpoint why; he's an intriguing character with some really interesting stuff going on, his narration is charming and incredibly complex but i just i don't know. he didn't arouse my curiosity and desire to analyze like the other characters did (i admit my frankenstein rereads i kinda. skip the letters at the beginning. i know i am so sorry). it might be that he's quite far removed from the themes in frankenstein that really intrigue me like mental illness, neurodivergency, and generational trauma so nothing abt him stuck out to me
but!!! i am no longer apathetic about him! i thought it would feel like a chore to go through his letters with a fine toothed comb but walton represents what i think is a really underrepresented dichotomy: he's very industrious and self-efficacious, kinda like one of those self made millionaire crypto bros, with a privileged station and promising, comfortable future, but he has this wanderlust for life and beauty and romance that he cant really reconcile with his and it causes him a lot of distress and loneliness. when he meets victor he thinks he finds someone that can satisfy this longing for the romantic and sublime, someone attractive, intelligent, engaging, and ostensibly an avatar of the tragic romantic figure - walton thinks that this is the only proxy by which he can be understood and further understand himself, the only adequate vessel for this longing, which is probably why he attaches onto victor so obsessively. victor is tragic, beautiful, pitiful, complex, fallen from grace, and because of his idealism and thirst for a romantic story walton thinks he can save them both. especially because they knew each other for a relatively short period of time, i don't know to what extent walton loves victor or just loves the narrative of loving victor. in the idiot by dostoevsky prince myshkin says of natasya filippovna "i love her not with love, but with pity" and i think that might be what's going on with walton and victor. i need to spend more time thinking about that though
on the subject of him being like percy the major similarity i noticed is that walton, being an orphan, was raised by his older sister, and ive seen some people attribute his emotional and "effeminate" nature to his being raised under her "gentle and feminine fosterage"; similarly, percy shelley was very close to his mother and sisters in his youth, and ive seen a couple scholars attribute his sentimentality of character and feminist-adjacent ideas (like free love) to his being close to female figures in his childhood and young adulthood. probably a stretch but i just think it's kinda interesting. the two also share some other similarities like being poets in profession (or at least trying to be 😭) and veneration for nature
i think i had more to say but my brain power is depleted 😭 im so so so sorry it took me so long to get around to this ask!!! i had to do a little rereading and critical thinking which is yucky
what do yall know about achilles de flandres
*pats victor like you would the roof of a car* cultural osmosis really did a number on you didnt it
Hello endernation I’m alive again sorry! Here is art I made last month or so? Idk
Brief tbhk ref bc i hfx on it for like two seconds and gave up
Also the peterachilles was moved to a new canvas and is being worked on as a separate project fyi and like guys so honest it all started as stupid recreation of the vocaloid butterfly headphone yuri like look
Ender’s hair made me mad just remembered I didn’t finish it but wtvr I’ll post his full design later plus updated ones of these bc this is so OLDDDDDD I’m sick really someone hit me repeatedly so I’ll draw them again
Wait I lied one more thing actually
Rotterdam design of Achilles, unpopular opinion I fear but I really liked his stupid shirt in the comics
okay the end bye for an unforeseeable amount of time
if victor is the creature's literal father, then by extension the female creature would have been the creature's literal sister. by choosing to break his promise and destroy the bride, victor is breaking the cycle of abuse by refusing to comply to the demand that he dictate a marriage between siblings, like his mother did to him and elizabeth.
”this video is made possible by ingolstadt morgue. not sponsored” victor says while breaking and entering
she herbert on my west till my dan cain
When your 8ft son built from dead corpses has daddy issues because of you
i really adore the fact that by the end of the book franknestein had managed to create an equal and mate to the creature by having turned himself as such. like he has become so misshapen that he can no longer fit in human society and his internal monologue is so eerily reminiscent of the creatures. this is franknestein:
He wished me to seek amusement in society. I abhorred the face of man. Oh, not abhorred! they were my brethren, my fellow-beings, and I felt attracted even to the most repulsive among them as to creatures of an angelic nature and celestial mechanism. But I felt that I had no right to share their intercourse. I had unchained an enemy among them, whose joy it was to shed their blood and to revel in their groans. How they would, each and all, abhor me, and hunt me from the world, did they know my unhallowed acts and the crimes which had their source in me!
and this is the creature about the family in the cottage:
I had admired the perfect forms of my cottagers—their grace, beauty, and delicate complexions: but how was I terrified when I viewed myself in a transparent pool! At first I started back, unable to believe that it was indeed I who was reflected in the mirror; and when I became fully convinced that I was in reality the monster that I am, I was filled with the bitterest sensations of despondence and mortification. Alas! I did not yet entirely know the fatal effects of this miserable deformity.